


rinse, wash, reset

by Tkhan0



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Basically pregame saihara, Mastermind Saihara Shuichi, Sort Of, Time Loop, Virtual Reality, everyone else is mentioned - Freeform, kind of but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 16:34:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13011774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tkhan0/pseuds/Tkhan0
Summary: The game ends, but the results don’t satisfy him so he resets.Again.And again.He’ll play this game till the results satisfy him. Until he gets an end fit for Danganronpa.





	rinse, wash, reset

**Author's Note:**

> This fic exists purely because I wanted to write a fic with time travel shenanigans and Angst™ for our favorite detective (still do but at a later time probably) but didn’t have the time or mental acuity and so I settled for something much more evil and easier to write to quench my time loop needs. Be forewarned, this is extremely self-indulgent and Saihara is literally terrible.
> 
> If you want some good background music for this piece considering listening to the thing I had on repeat while writing this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVJVegIf_rc  
> I call it my "conspiracy soundtrack", it has great ambiance for these kind of things- where something is afoul or just feels wrong and you dont know what. It's one of my top used tracks when reading fics (especially time travel ones, for those of you who recognize the game.)

The game ends, but the results don’t satisfy him so he resets. 

Again.

And again. 

He’ll play this game till the results satisfy him. Until he gets an end fit for Danganronpa.

 

He finds his classmates immeasurably boring. They really don’t know how to play the game do they? Petty predictable motives, boring murders and even more boring investigations. It takes all his willpower to see a trial through to the end without resetting right then and there. But he does, because he needs the data and he’s never been given this much power before. He needs to put it to good use. 

The first few games he hangs out with Akamatsu, if only to stay in character. Maybe he’d be upset that his character is pathetically weak if he didn’t have as much control over them all as he did.

(He ignores the part of his brain that reminds him he only has that power because his uncle has been with the show for so long. _Shut up_. It’s just his character talking he reminds himself, the pathetic detective who won’t even stand up for himself without having someone else prop him up first. But _he_ can’t be that pathetic, can he? Not when he’s the one in control of all their miserable little lives. Not when he’s about to make this season the best one ever.) 

He admits he was surprised she had the capacity to murder the first time around, and he repeats the game to varying results each time. But what doesn’t change is her “can do” attitude and he finds that annoying. He wants to see her despair, wants to break her past the point of no return, but it seems she’s incapable of doing anything besides being strong for everyone else. He finds himself enjoying the games where she’s killed off sooner, a symbol of hope whose life is tragically cut short. It represents the best parts of the classic Danganronpa.

In the games where Amami doesn’t get his head bashed in first he spends time with him and decides he’s better off dead. What a waste of a player. The ultimate survivor who can’t even remember the truth of a game he tried so hard to end. How predictable. It’s not like that hasn’t been done before. Mentally he curses the agency for letting an amateur write this season’s characters.

Eventually he chooses to ignore him, knowing Amami will never succeed so long as he doesn’t remember. It’s ironic, he thinks, he might’ve stood a chance if his whole character didn’t revolve around being the survivor. He wonders if maybe Amami would end up stuck in a loop if he survived to the end of every game he was in, making it to the end, sacrificing himself, forgetting. Rinse. Wash. Repeat. And for the first time in a while he laughs because he’s the one in a loop of his own making, yet he still chooses to repeat even knowing everything. Maybe he’s no better than Amami after all.

Tojou isn’t as calm and levelheaded as she makes herself out to be, and he reads her like an open book immediately. She’s just as scared as everyone else, that’s no surprise, but she must be truly deserving of her ultimate ability if she still puts her "selfless devotion" to serving others before her own needs. It seems a lot of his classmates retain that boring character trait; putting others before themselves. He isn’t surprised when the motive for her trial ties back to her duty as a maid. _Too predictable_ he thinks, and struggles to contain his boredom whenever he talks to her. He can’t work with a character this dull and one note. She’ll have to be killed off early it seems.

Hoshi has the potential to be interesting- he could have a great redemption arc- if he could manage to survive past the third trial. It’s like the intern wrote him with death predetermined. Some games he offers himself up first, most of the time though, he just lets death take him. Whoever this kid was beforehand must not have been long for this world if the thought of death was so ingrained that it comes natural to his character. He supposes he should give props to Shirogane for putting that aspect to good use, but maybe she could’ve toned it down a little. It’s no fun if the character starts the game with no will to live- that’s something they should gain throughout. There’s no point making someone like him despair, so in the end he writes him off as another one who must die early.

He has to give credit to Shirogane for Shinguji. She’s written someone almost as vile and despicable as themselves- the people running an actual killing game. It’s unfortunate that that's where his character ends. He has the creepy killer vibe down pat, and that almost makes up for his glaring lack of character, but in games where he sticks around longer it’s obvious there’s no real substance to him outside of his beloved sister. It’s a shame humanity isn’t as beautiful as he claims it is, or he wouldn’t have been written as such an obvious killer, wouldn’t have been condemned to death from the moment he entered this world. Well there’s nothing to it, but to make sure he at least takes out one or two uninteresting characters with him when he goes out.

It's impossible to keep a straight face around Yonaga. She's so eccentric- and not nearly as clueless as she makes herself out to be- but she's fallen for her own trap. Her god is as fake as her character; yet she's managed to convince herself both are real. It's hilarious in a way only the audience will understand. He thinks maybe she isn't as boring as the rest, but characters can only have so much depth. She can't be allowed to stay long, she's a threat to the entertainment value of the killing game- possibly the only real one. If she ever managed to convince everyone to stop killing and live there for the rest of the lives- well if he's being honest it has a certain appeal. A despair the likes of which has only been seen once in a cut ending to the first killing game. But bad endings are cut for a reason. No one wants a killing game to end in such a boring way.

Chabashira gets annoying rather quickly, so it’s a good thing she never seems to make it very far. Her penchant for calling the males degenerates would be endearing if it wasn’t just pandering. Seriously what was Shirogane even thinking with her? At the very least, if she had been given a plausible backstory to justify such strange behavior it would be more tolerable, but as is he can’t help but wonder if even the audience will accept such a flimsy premise for her defining character trait. She’s nothing they haven’t seen before- passionate athletic character who’s very close to one character in particular- and that makes her boring beyond words. The only good that comes from her is the development Himiko seems to get whenever she dies, although he’s sure that could just be considered bad writing if he’s being honest. He can’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t be more interesting if she was killed by the one she’d go to the ends of the earth to protect, but he hates cheap drama just as much as bad writing so there’s no winning with her it seems.

Momota is as standard as they get. The hero character. The one who gives pep talks and grand speeches and tries to pretend they're invincible. He supposes the illness was a nice touch, a way to bring him down to earth to the very realistic possibility of death, but to his annoyance that only makes him more insistent. Sometimes he goes out stubbornly pretending to be all right before he has a chance to kill or be killed. A meaningless death in the most literal sense, but at least it makes for an interesting trial when Shirogane tries to salvage his corpse. He's just like Akamatsu in a lot of ways, but lucky for him he's not as smart which makes him a bit more interesting. His death may be predetermined but they compromise that by giving him a bit more plot armor in the early chapters. Gives him more time to rub off on the more impressionable characters.

For as much as he talks about making this game interesting, in the end Ouma turns out to be the most predictable of all. How boring. Every reset he tries to find a way to end the killing game and refuses to work with anyone. Sometimes that even ends in his own death, but that doesn’t stop him from doing it all over again the next game. He finds it hilarious how powerless Ouma really is. Never once does the whiteboard in his room get even remotely close to the truth. He doesn’t even reach the half-truth- that Shirogane is the mastermind. He has to refrain from doubling over in laughter when he sees the words “Trustworthy?” under his name in one of the games. In the end Ouma’s paranoia gets him nowhere; he’s just as clueless about it all as his classmates. He shouldn’t be surprised at the intern’s lack of originality here; every season needs a character meant to be isolated. He just wishes she had written him a bit smarter; even his attempts to overthrow the game end in failure- his actions only serve to make the killing game more entertaining, even when he gives his life to put an end to it. It's laughable, even pitiable. He supposes he should be glad Ouma never does anything as boring as kill to get out, but knowing he would never kill is boring in a sense as well. The antagonist shouldn’t be that easy to understand. He’ll have to make sure to make Ouma as unreadable as possible in the final cut.

Every time he hangs out with Shirogane he has to repress a smirk. She’s the only other one with as much information as he has and she still doesn’t ever suspect him of knowing more than he lets on. She thinks everything is going all according to plan, and he can’t help but smile at how she hides her involvement in the most obvious way- by making herself as inconspicuous as possible. He laughs because he knows the most seasoned Danganronpa veterans will catch on immediately, so much so that it’s actually pathetic she thinks she’s doing a good job hiding it. He didn’t expect much from her anyway. She might’ve written the characters- including his own, well minus the part where he’s the director at least- but it’s his season for a reason. He’s the one in control here and she agreed in full, fooling herself into believing she had some semblance of control over her life and character. She must’ve wrote herself as the mastermind as a sort of small petty victory against him; clearly she wasn’t happy with the studio’s choice.

Kiibo isn’t good for much outside of his audience participation feature. They did enough test runs to figure out his personality was too boring without it. All Kiibo serves to do is remind him that he needs to hurry up and finish the planning stage so they can move on to the final production stage. But he can’t relinquish this power yet. He’s having too much fun testing out these characters- searching for the optimal story, the best game, one he can be proud of once they begin filming. Individually the characters are all as boring as Kiibo, but when put together, a mish mash of odds and ends from the bottom of a barrel, their flaws complement each other, and they transform from useless puzzle pieces to a complete picture. _But the problem with jigsaw puzzles_ , he thinks, _is that even when you have the final picture the cracks are still visible._

The curtain draws closed on the 6th trial yet again, and _they’re oh so close_ but he still feels like it lacks the power and oomph of the last 2 seasons. That simply won’t do. What good is a boring killing game? No, he knows, _it needs to be perfect_. Shirogane is condemned to death for being the game’s mastermind- he stifles a chuckle at the thought; they’re all just clueless puppets aren’t they? The intern really got carried away this time if she actually believes she had control over this. He ends the game, resets the characters- he needs to make some changes if he’s going to get the results he wants. The thought of the paper work he’s going to have to run through to get there gives him a headache. How many times has he played through this game now? Ten? Twenty? And how many days has it been? A month? Three? It doesn’t matter, because in time he’ll have the perfect game, and it’ll all have been worth it.

 

The game begins again.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for anyone who mightve been expecting a paragraph on maki and himiko, i got kinda lazy towards the end. Just want to take a moment to stress that these arent my actual thoughts on your favorite characters, I just had to be as negative as possible to make this work. I'm not sure if I like this one or not, but it was super fun to write.


End file.
